How Leifheit lays the foundation for scalable D2C commerce with Shopmacher

Leifheit AG is one of the leading suppliers of household products in Europe, especially in the areas of laundry care, cleaning and kitchen. With a strong B2C brand, Leifheit runs its own online shop and also sells through various marketplaces.

Leifheit's online shop is more than just a sales channel: it serves as a showcase for the brand and product range, contributes to customer loyalty and is a central element of the company's D2C strategy. Because the existing SAP-based web shop was no longer viable for the future, the household goods manufacturer wanted to put it on a new technical footing. The platform was hard to scale, custom adjustments caused high costs, and even simple measures such as discount campaigns had to be programmed by external service providers. "We could hardly implement anything ourselves," reports Karina Mosbach, Senior Online Shop Manager at Leifheit. "Every little thing immediately turned into a project."

Another driver for a system change was the planned internationalization: local country organizations were to work more independently in future, and new shops needed to be rolled out more easily. So Leifheit also had to create new conditions organizationally. With a cloud-based platform, as the conceptual approach put it, that enables decentralized working.

Because there was little experience with cloud-based shop systems internally and also on the side of the Polish digital agency Leifheit had worked with for years, Leifheit decided to bring in independent consulting expertise for the replatforming. The goal was to question existing assumptions, compare technological options objectively and strategically build up internal commerce competencies. "The platform change is a critical step," explains Samira Sehr, IT Process Manager E-commerce at Leifheit. "We wanted to avoid blind spots and gain strategic certainty."

Leifheit awarded the consulting mandate, which does not include operational implementation, to Shopmacher. As strategic sparring partners, they had a clearly defined brief: provide orientation, ground technology decisions, strengthen internal decision-making ability.

The collaboration kicked off with a joint workshop. The goal was to create a shared understanding of technologies, system architectures and common best practices, while also critically classifying popular buzzwords. It resonated: "That really met us where we were," says Mosbach. "As a neutral advisor, Shopmacher gave us an overview without a sales agenda. That was extremely helpful for sorting out our thoughts."

After that, Shopmacher supported the structured requirements gathering. Which tools are fixed? Which processes can be streamlined? What can and should stay standard? These questions were analyzed together with the team, always with an eye on scalability, maintainability and independence. Shopmacher also led the evaluation of possible technologies: from the previous SAP environment through Magento variants to modern, cloud-based shop systems like Shopware. Leifheit ultimately chose Shopware, not least because the system precisely met the desire for more autonomy, flexibility and closeness to standard.

The collaboration between Leifheit and Shopmacher was marked from the start by openness, pragmatism and mutual trust. "You immediately felt that everyone was pulling in the same direction. Shopmacher quickly understood our language and way of thinking, which made a lot easier," explains Mosbach. Instead of relying on individual custom solutions, both sides deliberately chose a different path: question critically, reduce complexity, strengthen independence. "We didn't want to rebuild everything just because it used to be that way," says the Online Shop Manager. "We preferred as much standard as possible and only went custom where it really makes sense."

This attitude ran through the entire project, from tool selection to concrete front-end implementation. One example: instead of rebuilding the old navigation menu with a custom solution, Leifheit chose, with Shopmacher's support, a close-to-standard variant that was more maintainable, faster to implement and better to scale.

The sparring also proved valuable when selecting new tools. For newsletter delivery, for instance, Shopmacher recommended a solution that fit the requirements of the European target markets better than the previously used system, saving time, budget and nerves. Beyond that, Shopmacher brought not only technical know-how but also the necessary network: personal contacts to tool providers, manufacturer support at Shopware, escalation channels, and the ability to help through the short official channel when it mattered.

Instead of stepping back after the partner selection was complete, Shopmacher stayed on board as a neutral sparring partner. The team accompanied coordination meetings between Leifheit and the agency, continuously ran inception workshops and one-on-one sparring sessions with the key stakeholders, and systematically questioned requirements, processes and proposed solutions. The goal was to specifically strengthen internal competence at Leifheit and lay the groundwork for future decisions to be made from their own expertise. That plan worked out: "Today we question standards much more consciously and make technology-driven decisions with more confidence," says Sehr.

A decisive success factor for the project was Leifheit's pragmatic attitude. The company showed a high willingness to adapt its own processes in order to stay as close to standard as possible. This approach contributed significantly to securing the efficiency and sustainability of the new platform in the long term.

The replatforming project has been completed since February and is now being optimized further in operation. The implementation was carried out by the existing agency and supported strategically by Shopmacher, who remain on board as sparring partners beyond the end of the project.

Thanks to this ongoing consulting, Leifheit can prioritize requirements more precisely, identify potential cost drivers early and strategically expand the use of standards. This creates a platform that is not only technically maintainable and scalable, but also organizationally future-proof.

The team has not only developed a new platform but also evolved its own role: from requester to confident decision-maker, supported by a consulting partner who prefers asking questions to drawing slides. "Shopmacher are not typical consultants. They are enablers with their feet on the ground. We're keeping them at our side, as a critical outside view that helps us stay focused," says Karina Mosbach, Senior Online Shop Manager.

From Shopmacher's perspective, too, Leifheit is an exceptional project: "Leifheit is a prime example of a successful consulting partnership on equal footing," praises Sabine Götz, Lead Consultant at Shopmacher. "Process understanding, openness to optimization and a willingness to keep developing make the difference."

What remains? A clear course. An empowered team. And a platform that stands on the right foundation: strategically, technically and culturally.